Some great perks at too high a cost - Anonymous employee Guitar Center Employee Review

2.0
23 Aug 2012
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

If you are a musician (and most employees at the stores are) you will love the gear discounts and the ability to go on tour and come back to your position. Most people you work with are fellow musicians and good people to connect with and network.

Cons

Very old school commission structures which foster aggressiveness and backstabbing with the customer as a second thought and low hourly wages for those not in sales with extremely high performance expectations.

Explore other reviews about Guitar Center

5.0
16 July 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Management takes good care of you

Cons

No complaints that I can think of

1.0
21 Apr 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Plenty of capable individual contributors doing real work. - The brand and the business itself are legitimate — the problems are organizational.

Cons

- Senior leadership is politically driven rather than outcome-driven. Strategic initiatives stall out, and leaders spend more energy assigning or shifting blame than actually diagnosing and fixing problems. - Some parts of the org operate on deference to the top. Honest assessments get softened into whatever narrative leadership wants to hear, which makes real cross-functional work difficult. - Senior leaders do not consistently advocate for their own teams. When things get political, self-preservation takes precedence over backing the people underneath, and capable managers end up exposed.

2
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